


Rock Bottom

by ObeyDontStray



Series: In Another Life (AU collection) [3]
Category: Stranger Things - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Hooked on drugs AU, Medical Conditions, drug usage, medical scare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 12:24:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9440333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObeyDontStray/pseuds/ObeyDontStray
Summary: Something's got to change or someone will find him rotting in a pile of empty beer cans.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the darkness guys. This one's pretty angsty. for jariksolo1138 on tumblr :)  
> A meeting at a support group, dysfunctional relationship and one of them trying to get the other one off of drugs au.

It took an near overdose to shake Jim Hopper. His coke habit had grown more severe since he lost his daughter and his marriage and the night he woke up face down in a pool of his own vomit on the bathroom floor was the breaking point. He opened his eyes wide, trying to focus. He managed to grab the towel from the rack and pull it down, covering the vomit and giving him space to push up to his knees. He reeled momentarily and banged into the wall with his shoulder but he managed to stand. When he looked in the mirror was really the turning point for him. His eyes were bloodshot and he had three days worth of scruff on his jaw that didn't hide the fact that he was blue around his mouth. "I cut it pretty close there, didn't I?" He said to no one before he spat in the sink. Something's got to change or someone will find him rotting in a pile of empty beer cans. 

 

.  
So it was decided. He was joining a support group. Not that he really thought it would solve anything, but it was worth a shot. There was one the next town over on Tuesday nights in a church and he decided to set aside the time every week to go. At least until his resolve crumbled, as it usually did. 

He grabbed the flimsy plastic chair and pulled it out of the circle. Several of the people in it casted sidelong glances at him but no one bothered to say anything. When he sat down his eyes drifted across the face of everyone in the group. Long, taunt faces with haunted eyes, most of them. Mostly men with a few women. Run down, tired looking people. He remembered his own reflection and realized he didn't look much better. He froze when he noticed a familiar face. Joyce Byers. Her eyes were wide with anxiety and her knee bounced with nervous energy. Jim couldn't believe how tired and fearful she looked. A far cry from the girl he fooled around with in high school. 

Jim shot her glances across the room as each person in the ring talked, their words falling on Jim's deaf ears. He couldn't focus, all he wanted to know was Joyce's story. When the person in charge's attention fell on Joyce she shrank back in her seat. As quietly as he could, Jim retrieved a pill from his pocket and swallowed it dry. Pills, another habit he'd need to break. Pills to numb, coke to spike. 

"What's your name?" The leader asked her and Joyce folded in on herself. "Joyce." She squeaked. 

"And what's your drug of choice?"

"Cocaine." She admitted bluntly, appearing on the edge of tears. 

She clammed up afterwards and the leader couldn't get anymore out of her. When it was his turn to speak Jim politely refused (what was the point of being here anyway?) but Joyce's eyes met his from across the room and he suddenly figured out just what he needed. 

 

.  
After exchanging a few pleasantries and catching up over cigarettes outside of the building, the conversation turned and Jim laid out his offer. He had enough stashed in his car to share and she was welcome to it if she wanted it. 

They smoked until the area cleared and the sky turned dark, assuring everyone that asked that they were just old friends catching up. When the coast cleared, they made his way to the back of his car. Before he could retrieve his stash she pulled him into the backseat and between her legs, pulling him into a crushing kiss. Her hand tangled in his hair as his hands roamed beneath her shirt, his rough hands caressing smooth skin. "We're really going to do this in the parking lot of a church?" He laughed between frantic kisses as he pulled the door shut behind them. 

"No better place for sinners." She replied, moving to pull his shirt over his head. He pushed her shirt up and lay a hand across her stomach, stilling her movements. He grinned and fished beneath the seat and retrieved the bag of powder. "Hold on a minute baby." 

He retrieved a random credit card from his wallet and poured a bit of the powder onto her bare skin, just above the line of her jeans, and scratched it into three lines. He lowered his head and pressed a kiss to her hip before taking the lines up his nose. When he sat back part of his beard was dusted with the white powder. She laughed and brushed it away with an errant hand. He still looked handsome with haggard face and irises blown wide. 

"My turn." She pushed him back into the seat and onto his back, moving over him to make room in the small backseat. She tapped the powder over his heart and followed in turn, taking up a line. Straddling his lap, she sat back on him and smiled, brushing a hand across her nose and sniffling. 

After much fighting with clothes and sloppy kisses they managed to get out of enough clothing to achieve what they wanted, access to each other. Joyce rocked against him, bracing herself on his ribs. He growled, bracketing her hips with his big hands and enjoying the ride the high and her body were providing him. He was enjoying her warmth when something went horribly wrong. 

Hop's body went ridged beneath her, his muscles taunt as he began shuddering. He could vaguely hear her as she frantically called his name, sliding half naked into the floorboard and struggling to turn him on his side. "Jim! You're okay, you're okay. Oh god please be okay." She fretted as she balled up his shirt and lay his head onto it. Blood ran down his cheek and stained his beard. The tremors finally subsided and he leaned into the floorboard space, throwing up the little food he'd eaten during the day. "No hospital!" He grunted and without warning his world went dark. 

 

.  
Jim opened his eyes, squinting in the morning sun. He frowned when he realized he was in a hospital room. His gaze fell on Joyce, her tiny framed wrapped in a blanket and sleeping in the fetal position in the chair next to the bed. He coughed, his throat raw from vomiting, and she woke, at his bedside and holding his hand in an instant. "Don't you ever scare me like that again, Jim Hopper!" He only noticed then she was sporting her own hospital gown and tethered to her own IV bag.

"What happened?" 

"You had a seizure. Scared the shit out of me. I thought you were going to die." 

"Are the police involved?" He asked, looking around the room for any uniformed officer that may be hiding behind a curtain or just out of the line of sight. 

"No. They're looking the other way since you're police in another town. Seems like that would give them all the more reason to bust us, you'd think. And I dumped the coke we had left while I was waiting for the ambulance."

"You dumped my coke?" He fumed. There was another three lines left in the bag, easy. 

"Yes. Because this is day one of recovery. I relapsed last night when I did that line. I'm back to square one. And I'm going to help you find square one. We both need to be off this stuff."

"I guess that's the thing about hitting rock bottom. The only way left is up." He mused before running his teeth over the bite mark in his tongue. 

"You've never come clean, have you? You haven't even imagined rock bottom yet. And I know they found all those other drugs and alcohol in your system. You've got a hard road ahead." She said, patting his hand. 

"You can't force someone into getting clean." He said, fiddling with the IV in his hand. 

"James Keith Hopper, you're coming clean or I will kick your ass myself." 

"Yes ma'am, Joycee Lee."


End file.
